For this year's C# Advent, I decided to finally implement an idea that I've been kicking around for a couple of years now. It's a parody of Baz Luhrmann's Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) track from 1997. The "lyrics" are from a Chicago Tribune column written by Mary Schmich, entitled "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young". Much of the advice in the original song has stuck with me over the years, and it continues to be relevant and entertaining. I thought that a version created just for developers, programmers, coders, engineers would be fun. I commissioned the help of voice actor Noah Jenkins (on Twitter @GeekyVoices) to bring a voice to my writing, and I laid his voice over a karaoke version of the song. (By the way, if you need voicework, I can highly recommend him!) Please enjoy! Make sure to check out all the other great entries into this year's C# Advent. I look forward to doing it again next year. Lyrics: Coders, developers, software engineers, and programmers in the year of 2020Write unit testsIf I could offer you only one tip for the futureUnit tests would be it The long term benefits of unit tests have been proven by studiesWhereas the rest of my adviceHas no basis more reliable than my ownMeandering, flawed experienceI will dispense this advice...now. Enjoy the power and beauty of your codeBut, never mindYou'll look back on your code in 6 months and wonder who let you near a keyboard.But trust me, this means you're improving.Seeing your past code as flawed just means that you are learning.You are not as bad a coder as you imagine. Don't worry about the futureOr worryBut know that worrying is as effective as trying to write the next Facebook on a TRS-80.The real troubles in your career are apt to be things that you never learned in college or boot camp.The kind where your team decides to deploy to production on Friday at 5pm. Do something everyday that challenges you. Draw. Don't judge other people harshly in code review.Don't put up with people who harshly judge yours. Write docs. Don't waste time on jealousy.Some days you're killing it, some days you aren't.The race is longAnd in the end, it's only with yourself. Remember the compliments, put them in a special folder.Forget YouTube comments.If you succeed in doing this, tell me how Keep your old code in an open source repositoryThrow away your unused domain names. Take days off. Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your careerThe most interesting people I know aren't doing at 40 what they thought they wanted to do at 22.And many of them say they still don't know what they're doing. Get plenty of C# Be kind to your wristsYou'll miss them when they're gone Maybe you'll start a company, maybe you won't Maybe you'll get stock options and bonuses, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll go into management. Maybe you'll give up on computers completely and open a boutique when you turn 50 Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself eitherYour choices are at least partially chance, and so are everybody else's Use your bodyUse it on something manual and analogDon't be afraid of stepping away from the computer, and what you might miss on TwitterHonest labor will let your mind rest Learn. Even if your boss isn't going to pay for itRead blog posts, even if you don't agree with themGo to conferences, even if you spend more time in the hallway than the sessionsEducation is not something you can ever finish.DO NOT read the comments on Hacker News and Reddit, they will only make you feel terrible (chorus) Get to know your familyYou never know when they'll be gone for good Be nice to your siblingsThey are your best link to your pastAnd the people most likely to stick with you in the futureSend a Snopes link if you mustBut don't argue with their political views in public on Facebook Understand that teammates come and goBut for the precious few you should hold on toWork hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyleBecause the older you get, the more you need the people that knew you when you were young Work for a government agency onceBut leave before it makes you grumpyWork for a silicon valley startup onceBut leave before it turns you into an insufferable hipster Travel Accept certain inalienable truthsDevelopers get distracted by newer frameworksBugs will always be aroundYou too will get oldAnd when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were youngNew frameworks were always betterThere weren't so many bugsCertifications were importantAnd junior developers respected their seniors Respect YOUR seniors Don't expect anyone to hand you anythingMaybe you'll have stock optionsMaybe you'll get V.C. fundingBut you never know when either might run out Don't be cocky about any once piece of technologyOr by the time you're 50, you'll be known as "that Windows Phone guy" Be careful whose mentorship you seekBut be patient with anyone who supplies mentoringAdvice is a form of nostalgiaDispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the garbage, wiping it offSmoothing over the ugly parts and redeeming it for more than it's worth But trust me on the unit tests (chorus)  

This is a special crossover episode with Remember When, hosted by Steve Fischer and Scott Wood. Show Notes: Remember When podcast (iTunes link) Remember When Podcast on Facebook Podcast: Retronauts Podcast Atari Archive on YouTube Book: Racing the Beam Remember When is on Twitter

Dennis Stepp is prioritizing tests based on risk. This episode is not sponsored! Want to be a sponsor? You can contact me or check out my sponsorship gig on Fiverr Show Notes: Mind Mapping The four factors of risk based analytis: Domain, risks, impact, likelihood I threw out the term systemic risk Books: Clean Code by Robert C. Martin The Phoenix Project by Jean Kim A Seat at the Table by Mark Schwartz Making Work Visible by Dominica Degrandis Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers Dennis-Stepp.com Dennis is on Twitter Want to be on the next episode? You can! All you need is the willingness to talk about something technical.

Arlene Andrews talks about good online learning resources. This episode is not sponsored! Want to be a sponsor? You can contact me or check out my sponsorship gig on Fiverr Show Notes: Arlene Andrews Our Learning Map Free Code Camps Coding Blocks "Clean Code" episodes CodingBlocks Slack The Ministry of Testing QIT is a search engine for podcasts. As of April 21st, this very podcast will now start showing up in QIT searches! QIT source code QIT feed loader source code Test Automation University Angie Jones Amber Race CS 50 via EdX @SWYX: Learn in Public Arlene is on Twitter Want to be on the next episode? You can! All you need is the willingness to talk about something technical.

Jonathan Danylko talks to Matt about the results of the 2019 Stack Overflow developer survey. We kinda go all over the place for this episode! This episode is not sponsored! Want to be a sponsor? You can contact me or check out my sponsorship gig on Fiverr Show Notes: This episode is a bit different than normal episodes. It’s an informal discussion of the Stack Overflow survey results by two people who are not and have never been Stack Overflow employees. We discuss a few things that stood out to us, but we barely scratch the surface of all the data that you can dig through. Make sure to check out the survey results yourself for the entire picture! Stack Overflow survey results We talk a bit about remote work. If you’re interested in that, I recorded a whole episode with Gino Ferrand and published it last week last week. DanylkoWeb Jonathan Danylko is on LinkedIn Jonathan Danylko is on Twitter Want to be on the next episode? You can! All you need is the willingness to talk about something technical.

Gino Ferrand is building a company for distributed teams. This episode is not sponsored! Want to be a sponsor? You can contact me or check out my sponsorship gig on Fiverr Show Notes: Tecla The Agile Manifesto Tecla blog Book: Remote by DHH and Jason Fried Gino Ferrand is on Twitter Want to be on the next episode? You can! All you need is the willingness to talk about something technical.

Steven van Deursen is building maintainable software with dependency injection. This episode is not sponsored! Want to be a sponsor? You can contact me or check out my sponsorship gig on Fiverr Show Notes: .NET Junkie - Steven’s blog Book: Dependency Injection Principles, Practices, and Patterns Check out episode 94 with Jeremy Miller on Lamar Book: Domain Driven Design Simple Injector Autofac Some free excerpts from the book: Writing Maintainable, Loosely-Coupled Code Understanding the Composition Root Abuse of Abstract Factories What’s wrong with the ASP.NET Core DI abstraction? Steven van Deursen is on Twitter Want to be on the next episode? You can! All you need is the willingness to talk about something technical.

Jamie Phillips is writing infrastructure as code. This episode is not sponsored! Want to be a sponsor? You can contact me or check out my sponsorship gig on Fiverr Show Notes: PhillipsJ.net Terraform HCL, and yes it does kinda look like CSS DNSimple Terraform Guides Terraform on Azure Book: Terraform: Up and Running It was just last week, but make sure you don’t miss Jamie’s episode on Packer! Jamie Phillips is on Twitter Want to be on the next episode? You can! All you need is the willingness to talk about something technical.

Jamie Phillips is creating machine images with Packer. This episode is not sponsored! Want to be a sponsor? You can contact me or check out my sponsorship gig on Fiverr Show Notes: Jamie Phillips’s blog Packer Vagrant Packer on GitHub Jamie Phillips is on Twitter Want to be on the next episode? You can! All you need is the willingness to talk about something technical.

Michelle Schulp is using atomic design and WordPress. This episode is not sponsored! Want to be a sponsor? You can contact me or check out my sponsorship gig on Fiverr Show Notes: Marktime Media My Name is Michelle Fitness and Freelance WordPress Find a WordCamp near you. Pattern Lab Book: Atomic Design by Brad Frost Check out the new Gutenberg editing experience on WordPress (and compare it to the former editor, TinyMCE) Other CMSs of note: Joomla and Drupal Developer Resources for WordPress WordPress TV Joe Casabona Zac Gordon Tom McFarlin’s blog on Practical WordPress Development Pippin’s Plugins Book: Discover Object-oriented Programming using Wordpress by Carl Alexander Michelle Schulp is on Twitter Want to be on the next episode? You can! All you need is the willingness to talk about something technical.